7 Greatest Games on Semi-Slav [updated]

The Semi-Slav is one of the most popular variations of Queen’s Gambit Declined. It can be reached by various move orders. Black builds a pawn triangle, c6-d5-e6 and with …dxc4, …a6 and …b5 mobilizes his queen-side pawns. The light-squared bishop is placed on b7, once the diagonal is opened after …dxc4.

Play is comparatively smooth in Meran and Moscow Variation and wild in Anti-Meran, especially, the Botvinnik System. Many great games have been played with Semi-Slav. In this article we will explore andlearn from some of them.

Here are 7 classic games in the opening. We have deliberately kept them without annotations so that readers can explore them on their own. Do post comments and questions on our home page so that there is a lively discussion. We shall lend a helping hand from time to time-Ed.